Building Walls and Tearing Them Down

Linda | February 1, 2017

Walls have been used throughout history to provide protection, divide countries, lock away prisoners and isolate captives. President Trump is moving to build a 40-foot-tall, 7-foot-deep, 10-inch-thick, and 1,000-mile-long wall border wall with Mexico to stop illegal immigration. The thoughts and opinions surrounding this order abound but we won’t get into that. I remember how exciting it was when the 11.81 foot Berlin Wall was destroyed in 1989 and my mom’s cousins and families were able to cross over into West Germany freely. The fact is that walls have an impact on people one way or another. While we’re on the topic of walls, let’s look at a few songs that mention walls that we can build in our lives and how they can affect us.

The Maze – Light 45 – debut EP, Decibels

Light 45’s intriguing video starts off with Justin looking at a brick that says unfaithful, which he adds to a stacked number of other bricks, each naming some vices, such as thief, liar and maybe some lies the enemy throws in, such as idiot. The scene flashes to Mark, who stands strumming his bass in a hallway surrounded by walls of brick, confining his space. The scene keeps returning to the three band members playing the song out in a desert like setting then flashing back to the wall. The video begins to show Justin in distress, beginning to feel like this is his lot in life, to reap the ruin of the wall of sin that he has built.

As each brick revealed the lies and the sins that I had fusedAnd as each brick I laid, I raised the thought that this is what life has for meAnd that is what I got

That crushing reality that we have really screwed things up can bury us unless we look up to the Son, which Justin does and it turns things around. Jesus paid the price so we don’t have to carry the unbearable burden of our sin. We have to admit it, call it what it is, not explain it away or chalk it up to “no one’s perfect”. All we have to do is lay it down at the cross of Christ where he paid for it all and we are free. Yes, FREE!

Then the Son got hot, yeah.For the first time I lifted up my eyes, and as my hands, they had followed suit, then to my surprise the sun hadMade this maze burn away and in these endless days (this endless daze) I’ll sing to my CreatorThat is what I got.

What do we get when we turn our sins over to Christ? We get freedom from our crushing guilt. We get the assurance that all is well with our soul even if it isn’t so great in our circumstances at the moment. We get to look forward to living eternally with our Creator in a place that He is preparing for us. We get to experience his limitless love for us. We get all this and so much more. God, bring down the wall of sin in our lives.

Fly On The Wall – Thousand Foot Krutch – The End Is Where We Begin

This is a unique song for the band, creating a dreamlike image in your mind that builds into a description of escaping our addictions. Trevor, in an interview with New Release Today, explains “This song is about someone speaking to their addictions and written from the point of view of me describing it in a dream.” Addictions build so many walls in our lives, between those we care about and ourselves, between our goals and dreams and being able to work toward them and between God and our relationship with him.

We weren’t divided We were the same And we were free But we all wore chains We couldn’t see it But we created A place between truth and overrated

The crazy thing is the walls that we build, the chains that we wear are often self-imposed and can be removed. With the power we have as God’s royal family members, we are not slaves to anyone or anything. We can be free. When life throws us for a loop and we are faced with deep pain or intense fears, we may escape to alcohol, drugs, food binges, unhealthy relationships or other addictions. We may use those to isolate ourselves from God and others because we don’t want to deal with it. Before we know it, the world has grown completely dark, depression sets in and we rely on our addictions to stop feeling at all. This is a sad place to be.

We had a plan to build a wall A great divide that would never fall To separate us From all the pain And keep our skeletons locked away

And brick by brick We built it so thick That it blacked out the sky and all the sunlight And one by one We all became numb We were making the bullets to a broken gun

OK so you know the scripture, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” (John 10:10) If we will recognize his schemes to destroy our lives we can begin to sever the addictions from our lives. We may need human intervention to help us through it but we have God’s kingdom power to overcome. We don’t need it anymore, whatever addiction it is that is ruining our lives. With allusions to what it means to be part of God’s kingdom and the power contained in that privilege, the song builds into a point of victory over addiction and freedom.

I’m on the run from a thief I let into my head I know, I hold the keys, so don’t be scared When I turn and shout:

I don’t think I need you anymore Take your words, and your lies and just beat it! I don’t think I need you anymore Take the hurt and the pain, I don’t need it

We have the power as God’s kings and queens to overcome and celebrate recovery. Jesus told us that we do. Is it harder for God to help us with our addictions than it is to move a mountain? (Matthew 17:20) I don’t think so. Anyway, God can do absolutely anything and although he many not want us to ask him to move Mount Everest, we know he wants us to be free from addiction.

I wanna live, I wanna be the change We can all be kings and queens If we can just learn to believe

Walls – Manic Drive – Blue

Unity is what God wanted for his people. Jesus said “I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one–as you are in me, Father, and I am in you. And may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me.” (John 17:21) It seems like unity is hard to come by these days. Our country is split in its ideas of how our country should run, churches have problems with unity both with other churches and within their own walls. Families struggle to get along. It seems unity is against our nature.

We are one but we’re not the sameFor a thousand years we’ve played this gameAnd the tension rises upYa the passion’s given up

Tearing down the walls that divide us takes prayer, sacrifice, and action on each of our part. It is never easy and may leave us feeling vulnerable. In Christ, however, unity is possible. He prayed for his spiritual family to have it. If Jesus prayed for us to be unified than unity should be something we strive for, shouldn’t it? We should be the role model for the world in our love for one another and our unity. In these times of heated debate about a wall going up, let’s work on the walls among us as believers coming down so we can be the hands and feet of Jesus, a mighty army, unified to be a light in this dark world.

Cause there’s something going downYa these walls are coming downCause the truth that has been saidWill unite us once againCause there’s something going downYa these walls are coming down